Resident Inventor

Brand Guidelines

Competent. Curious. Occasionally a nuisance.

What the work reveals

01The nuisance is load-bearing

I'm a nitpicker and a noticer. When something doesn't make sense, I tend to keep asking questions until I understand what's happening.

That might mean examining an interaction that asks a person to repeat information they've already supplied, or questioning an organizational practice that consumes time without producing anything particularly useful.

My background in operations has supplied plenty of relevant material. I've watched information disappear between handoffs, temporary fixes become permanent infrastructure, and people spend enormous amounts of effort compensating for systems around them.

I notice those things, and they bother me. Sometimes I make something about them.

Be a nuisance with a purpose.

02Curiosity gets to choose the direction

One of my invention histories begins with a question that sounds slightly ridiculous:

What if there was a way to play Portal without playing Portal?

The question came from my experience with Video Game Motion Sickness, which had made the original game difficult to enjoy. Exploring an alternative meant figuring out which parts of the experience could survive a change of medium. Choices needed to remain meaningful, puzzles still had to function, and the state of the world had to remain coherent. That investigation moved into interactive fiction.

Other projects have taken me through documentation, teaching, organizational design, software, and creative writing. I follow the questions that interest me and choose forms that allow me to explore them.

The resulting portfolio is broad, because my curiosity is broad.

03Checkpoints are where branching begins

An idea can reach a complete, useful form and reveal possibilities that weren't visible before.

The Lemonade Economy provides an example. What began as one kind of resource developed into something with different ways of organizing and accessing the material. The work changed as its purpose became clearer and new questions emerged.

I believe ideas should definitely have stopping points. However, I also know that a checkpoint can deceptively look like an ending, especially when a project has reached a recognizable milestone.

There's value in finishing things, but there's also value in recognizing when a finished thing has actually opened a door.

Some branches deserve attention immediately, while others can remain possibilities, and some won't be worth pursuing.

Don't be afraid to branch. Dare to dream.

04Show the machinery

The finished artifact is part of the story. BUT! I also care about the observations, decisions, wrong turns, and revisions that produced it.

That's why the portfolio includes invention histories that preserve the actual sequence of development, including pauses, repeated discoveries, and places where the record is incomplete.

I find it useful to show when an idea changed because it encountered something unexpected. A certain form can solve the problem that created it and still reveal another problem worth investigating.

The same principle appears in how I work with AI. A proposal I disagree with can be valuable because it gives me something concrete to examine, while sometimes the disagreement reveals a distinction that I hadn't previously articulated.

The histories should remain faithful to what happened: When evidence is missing, I leave the gap visible.

05Care belongs in the system

Years of working with different companies (of different size and complexities!) have made me attentive to the work that people perform just to keep things functioning.

A system might technically accomplish its purpose while demanding too much attention, memory, or unnecessary effort from the people who depend on it.

I consider those costs when designing workflows, documentation, and software. They affect how information is organized, how responsibility is assigned, and how people recover when something doesn't go according to plan.

My working-style page expresses this particularly well:

I care about the quality of the outcome and the experience of the people producing it. A good system protects both.

How I sound

Editorial guidance

This guide is primarily a description of how I already communicate, and the following preferences are here to help preserve that voice during editing.

Start with what the passage is doing. A technical explanation, a personal reflection, and a project introduction have different jobs. Their language should suit those jobs.

Give readers something to recognize. When introducing a complex idea, a concrete observation or example often provides a better entrance than a compressed definition. The technical vocabulary can follow once the subject is clear.

Let the details carry the expertise. Explaining what I noticed, why I made a decision, and what happened afterward often communicates more than a catalogue of professional disciplines. Accurate terminology still matters when it helps readers understand the work.

Write conversationally. Natural contractions, developed sentences, and direct explanations generally suit my voice (as well as asides 😉). Repetition can be effective when it establishes a requirement or changes the emphasis.

Keep the humor where it belongs. My jokes often emerge from the subject itself, especially when an unusual analogy turns out to be surprisingly accurate. There's also plenty of room for straightforward or emotionally serious writing.

Preserve the evidence. A prototype is a prototype, and informal tests remain informal. Planned features shouldn't be described as implemented, and uncertain outcomes shouldn't be presented as established facts.

Represent collaboration accurately. AI can contribute substantially to research, exploration, drafting, modeling, and implementation. The account should make clear where my judgment enters and what I take responsibility for.

Applying the guide

When reviewing a page, I wanna know whether a reader can understand what they're looking at, whether the claims are accurate, and whether the writing sounds like something I'd naturally say.

Sometimes a passage needs a clearer opening while other times a professional description benefits from an example. Occasionally the best editorial decision is truly to leave the writing alone.

Important note: This guide applies to Resident Inventor and my personal portfolio. Separately branded projects, institutions, and professional materials may have different communication requirements.